64 



GENERAL ORNITHOLOGY. 



saddle-shaped, as usual, but the sternum is flat, as in existiug Ostriches, and the wings are 

 rudimentary, wanting metacarpals. Some 20 species of several other genera of American 

 Cretaceous Birds have been described. Remains of Birds multiply in the next period, the 

 Tertiary. Those of the Eocene or early Tertiary are largely and longest known from discov- 

 eries made in the Paris Basin, among them Gastornis jiarisiensis, as large as an Ostrich ; some 

 of these belong to extinct genera, others to genera which still flourish ; none are known to 

 have true teeth, or otherwise to be as primitive as the reptile-like forms of the Cretaceous. 



Fig. 16. — B.estoTa,tioii ot Ickthy amis victor. After Marsh. 



The Miocene or Middle Tertiary has proven specially rich in remains of Birds, including some 

 of extinct genera, but in largest proportion referable to modern types. Later Tertiary (Plio- 

 cene and Post-pliocene) birds almost all belong to living genera, and some are apparently of 

 living species. Extinct birds coeval with man, their bones bearing his marks, are found in 

 various caves. Subfossil birds' bones occur in shell-heaps (kitchenmiddens) and elsewhere, of 

 course contemporaneous with man, and some of them scarcely prehistoric. One of the oldest 

 of these is the gigantic JEpyornis maximus of Madagascar, of which we have not only the 

 bones, but the egg. The immense Moas, or Dinornithes of New Zealand, were among the 



